Lifetimes
by Veterization
Summary: Stiles/Derek oneshot. The lives, and deaths, in which Stiles and Derek never need each other, and the ones where they do.


_Disclaimer:_ I do not own Teen Wolf.

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There are a million other worlds where Derek Hale never would have needed Stiles.

If Laura's gruesome death never would have reached his keen ears while he was taking a much needed fresh start away from Beacon Hills in the dank woods of faraway suburbs to let the passing of time ease his burning, perpetual guilt for destroying his family, the Argents' attempt at baiting Laura's most loyal brother, her only surviving relative, would have abruptly failed and Kate and Chris would have schemed up another brilliant plan to hunt down the Alpha. Scott would have been bitten by Peter facedown in the dirt no matter the circumstances, but Derek wouldn't be there to witness the turmoil, watch it unfold, and then, try desperately to wrap it all back up together. He'd be laying low in a quiet town that leaves him invisible to its inhabitants, just like he likes it, living a life where he dreams of echoes of his sister's sweet laughter and his father's guiding hand, all in black and white, like they're memories too far away to touch.

In another life, Kate Argent never burns down the Hale house and sticks to the code, deeming it to be immoral to seduce and deceive a young, impressionable werewolf eager to trust an outsider and share his family's fundamental secrets. He lives with his family in the grand house that stands tall at the edge of the woods, saving Derek a life of grief, remorse, and mourning over his family's nonexistent graves, his mother's cooking, his father's wisdom, his sister's quick-witted comments, the Hale family not a tragedy that the town gossips about in hushed tones but rather a clandestine group of close-knit relatives that knows more than any inhabitants of Beacon Hills that familial loyalty is a priority in all occasions.

Derek spends his Sundays not honing his muscles and reflexes to keep his lone self constantly protected against potential imminent danger, but helping his mother sweep the kitchen floor and racing with his sister behind the house. They play hide and seek among the bushes in the autumn, their sharp ears catching sounds of the slightest crunch of a crispy fall leaf under the sole of a boot or the labored breathing of someone crouching under the porch, growing up in each other's pockets. They trust their Uncle Peter. They still know what it feels like to trust. He never gets the chance to meet Stiles and experience his free-spirited energy.

In another life, he's not a werewolf. He's a human, vulnerable and cautionary, without dark secrets or hidden claws. He goes to school and scribbles over his notebooks like all the other kids, a million possibilities sparkling in front of him like stars. His future is infinite and he doesn't waste it—he becomes an accountant, because he's good with numbers, or maybe he's a writer who lets his pen tell tales of lives more exciting than his own, who has to pick up groceries on the weekend and be taught how to use the laundry machine.

He runs into Stiles maybe once, twice, in between rows of novels at the library or at the cashier. They bump into each other, offer succinct apologies, and move on with their lives, separated by distances that stretch as wide as countries. They don't spare each other second glances.

In another life, he's drowning. He sits at the bottom of an eight foot pool and closes his eyes, waiting for the water to wrap him up into an embrace of darkness, like the folds of Death's cloak, and the last thing he sees are Stiles' legs kicking to the surface after he lets him go. Derek's last word is Stiles' name, desperate and gurgled through water right before the trembling hand fisting his shirt and keeping him afloat drops him into the pit of the pool. Stiles comes back for him, but it's too late. The water fills up his lungs like a hose filling an inflatable pool, just like the ones Laura used to splash in when she was young and pink-cheeked during the peak of summertime, slowly but surely filling his throat, and he tries not to reminisce of the hard and the bad times, the good and the great, or the mistakes he's made that's brought him right here, helpless at the bottom of a high school pool.

In that life, he needs Stiles, but Stiles doesn't need him.

In another life, he's the Alpha, and he bites Stiles. He regrets it, naturally, because he's recruited a boy who is brimming with unbridled adrenaline, sarcasm, and a babbling tongue that is always tickling with words that need to be shared. He chatters and dashes about, careless and loud. Derek hunkers over him as much as he can, tries to shake sense into the kid, tries to tell him that he'll get himself killed with that sharp mouth of his and his clumsy left feet. Stiles laughs and doesn't listen, letting Derek chase after him like his whole life is a game worth gambling through. He makes Derek think that maybe it is, even when he has to save Stiles from hunters and scoop him away from danger without seconds to spare. He uses his claws and his fangs more than ever after he meets Stiles, always trying to protect the boy that has become his new, dysfunctional definition of what a pack truly is, and whenever Stiles teases and prods and asks him if he actually cares, Derek looks away.

Sometimes Derek considers shutting that kid up with alternative methods—just a quick, bruising kiss that would steal away his words for those few nanoseconds—but he never does.

In another life, Derek is just someone who likes lacrosse, and Stiles is the boy who refuses to quit playing even though his gangly limbs and untrained reflexes are more of a liability to his team than a treasure. Derek watches next to Stiles' father on the stands and listens to the man murmur encouragements into his fist while his son streaks inelegantly across the field, lacrosse stick proudly aloft, only to be roughly tackled by an opposing team member. Derek likes silence and order, the polar opposite of what the mayhem of aggressive high school boys charging toward each other is, but he watches the games anyway. He doesn't bother learning the names printed on the back of the jerseys, but rather soaks in their movements and the energetic thrum of the crowd every time the ball goes soaring into the net and the referee announces a point scored. He notices one boy the most, the one with the utter lack of athletic prowess who is mostly stuck cheering on the bench more loudly than the entire stands combined. Derek watches him, watches all of the determination that sits unaddressed under his skin, waiting to be praised and given free reign to roam, and wonders if anyone will ever let this boy show his potential to the world.

In some lives, Derek is too late. He misses Stiles by winks and heartbeats. His days routinely lack bad jokes and unprecedented loyalty. Those are the worst lives.

In another life, they meet in the hospital.

Derek is there for Peter, the only man he has left after Laura, and watches nameless men in white coats wheel around the broken, burnt shell of a man under sterilized sheets. He's a constant reminder of Derek's mistakes, from his mottled, red flesh trailing up his face to his blank gaze, emptier than Derek ever knew werewolves could be. It makes him feel small and powerless, like prey waiting to be caged and killed, unlike any feeling he's ever felt drum through his veins. He feels like maybe he should be angry, angry at Kate for manipulating him, but the guilt and misery overwhelm any other emotions his brain might have room for.

Stiles is there for his mother, still a young boy whose age is barely two digits, bearing a face of innocence that has never seen death or felt it whip his face and whistle through his ribcage like his heart has been brutally removed from his chest. Derek sees him clutch his father's hand and watches the tiny tears drip from his eyes while they sit stationary outside of a hospital room. Derek knows she won't make it from the odor he can smell off of alone, never mind the sluggish beep of her heart or the worried glances her doctors share when they're out of sight of her family, and the sympathy actually manages to make his heart ache. The boy leaning against his father and burying his wet face in his shoulder is too young for this, probably always will be, and suddenly Derek feels glad that he's already carrying a heart of stone to brace him for whatever agony is left in store for him.

In one life, werewolves are lower class citizens, confined and belittled as pets instead of humans, incarcerated as an entire species in rotting holes that act as poor facsimiles for prison cells. The humans, they make fun, they jeer through the bars and they like to provoke the temperamental werewolves, laughing as they snap at the lock and the bars with their fangs and remain helpless to their tormentors. Derek sits each day in solitude until Stiles shows up, looking for adventure, and pleads with his father to take home the werewolf with the not-all-that-intimidating glare of ice, and gets his wish granted.

He lives with Stiles as a pet would, confined to the house and fed scraps and leftovers, except Stiles takes care of him. He ruffles Derek's hair in ways that should be annoying but are really just soothing, shares with him aspects of his day he would deem too awkward to tell his father, and eventually he goes up to Derek and tells him that he deserves a life better than this.

Derek would be inclined to agree if it wasn't for Stiles changing all that for him.

In another life, they fight on different sides.

Stiles follows Scott—he always will, after all—and they end up entangled with the hunters. They find allies in Chris Argent, who Derek hates to admit is not a bad man, not even in the slightest, and Derek is left alone. His pack leaves him, in search of brighter prospects, and Isaac goes into hiding to save himself from the arrows that will inevitably come his way. Derek always knew that Scott would leave, especially when he's again and again fought Derek's guidance, but a part of him always expected Stiles to stay. Maybe it's because of all of the bumbling kids, he's got his priorities straight, or he knows the difference between what's wrong and what's right, better than even Derek does, but Stiles leaves and doesn't look back.

He never admits it, but he misses the Stiles-shaped hole in his life.

In another life, they find each other.

They push aside the differences, the way Derek obstinately refuses to indulge in Stiles' silly humor and the way Stiles won't submit to Derek's thunderous glares, and they make it work. They find their similarities, and that list actually ends up being longer than all the ways they can't stand each other's idiosyncrasies, like the fact that they're both missing chunks of family in the portraits that hang in their hallways or that they need each other inexplicably if they want to survive and grow old and gray, together or apart, or that Stiles' restlessness and inability to let go perfectly complements Derek's sturdiness and inability to hold on. They work, almost as well as Scott and Allison, because of reasons that nobody can understand. They don't feed each other strawberries by the fire on chilly winter evenings and they don't hold hands in the park, but they're there for each other. They trust each other.

They both know that there will never be enough lifetimes for either of them, so one day, Derek decides to take advantage of the one they have.

_-fin_

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_A/N: _So I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the Teen Wolf fandom just surpassed all that is awesome and became a little holy when they started the fanfiction contest, and this, lo and behold, was my entry. The fact that they were so appreciative of the "TV-appropriate stories" does make one wonder, though, if this is just an elaborate ploy for Jeff to find a plausible Sterek plot.

Meanwhile, I encourage everyone to go check out the sterekcampain dot com website to take part in the campaign and the Cookies for Sterek mission!


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